Gilbert Stuart Portrait
In 1878 a portrait by Gilbert Stuart was identified by George Washington Riggs, (also known as "The President's Banker"), a trustee of the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., as "Breschard, the Circus Rider", and as "Breschard" the painting was displayed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston in 1880. The portrait currently resides at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., but is now identified by the NGA as being John Bill Ricketts, another circus performer.
Stuart and Ricketts did not sail from Dublin to Philadelphia together as some have claimed. Owing to Stuart's aversion to being cooped up for weeks with a circus, he booked passage on another ship, the Draper, even though its destination was a different American port.
Peter Grain, a former member of the Circus of Pépin and Breschard, is cited in the NGA provenance for this painting as being the owner in the mid-19th century. After Grain, the portrait was owned by picture dealer Henry Barlow, who sold it to Riggs sometime before 1867. In that year, Henry T. Tuckerman's Book of the Artists: American Artist Life Comprising Biographical and Critical Sketches of American Arts listed the painting, sitter unidentified, as being in Riggs' collection. In 1944 it was displayed at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, as "William Rickhart", and by 1947 the National Gallery of Art had changed the identification to "John Bill Ricketts".
Read more about this topic: Jean Baptiste Casmiere Breschard
Famous quotes containing the words gilbert, stuart and/or portrait:
“It’s true I’ve got no shirts to wear;
It’s true my butcher’s bill is due;
It’s true my prospects all look blue—
But don’t let that unsettle you:”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“Calling it your job don’t make it right, boss.”
—Donn Pierce, U.S. screenwriter, Frank R. Pierson, and Stuart Rosenberg. Luke Jackson (Paul Newman)
“The explanation of the propensity of the English people to portrait painting is to be found in their relish for a Fact. Let a man do the grandest things, fight the greatest battles, or be distinguished by the most brilliant personal heroism, yet the English people would prefer his portrait to a painting of the great deed. The likeness they can judge of; his existence is a Fact. But the truth of the picture of his deeds they cannot judge of, for they have no imagination.”
—Benjamin Haydon (1786–1846)